TongTong
Sign in

大本营 (dà běn yíng) — headquarters; base camp

Definition

noun
headquartersbase camp

Examples

  • 大本营。
    Jūn duì de dà běn yíng shè zài chéng shì wài miàn.
    The military headquarters is located outside the city.
  • 大本营，。
    Dēng shān duì jiàn lì le dà běn yíng, zhǔn bèi dēng dǐng.
    The mountaineering team set up a base camp and prepared to summit.
  • 大本营。
    Zhè ge gōng sī bǎ dà běn yíng shè zài le shàng hǎi.
    This company has its headquarters in Shanghai.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

大dàbig
本营base camp
本běnbase营yíngcamp
偏正Modifier + head

大 marks the main, and 本营 means base camp, together naming headquarters.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The form 大 is a picture of a person standing and facing forward, not of someone stretching their arms.

Open 大 →

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

本 adds a stroke at the bottom of a tree shape to mark the roots, giving the sense of foundation or original.

Open 本 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 營; 营 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
宮宮gōngpalace
Sound part声符shēngfú
熒
熒yíng營yíng
Same sound today

The traditional form 營 pairs 宮 (palace) with 熒 as a sound part, depicting a person working all night with a light on his house; the simplified 营 is a later abbreviation.

Open 营 →
Appears in
Military & Defense

Browse more HSK 7-9 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.